“Destined to Be the Finest Country on Earth after a While”: Letters by Solomon Van Hook from Navarro County, Texas, 1852–1868

Solomon Van Hook (December 7, 1809–November 12, 1868) was the youngest of three children born to Kindle (1766–1854) and Anne Moore Van Hook (d. 1825).¹ Solomon’s parents were prosperous landowners and slaveholders in Person County, North Carolina. His siblings were David Van Hook (ca. 1805–February 11, 1868), a lifelong bachelor, and Mary D. Van Hook Holeman (March 17, 1807–June 17, 1838), first wife of James Holeman (1800–1874) of Person County.²

Solomon’s first wife was Mary Ann Richmond (b. November 9, 1822, in Caswell County, North Carolina), whom he married on April 29, 1839, in Caswell; to them was born a daughter, Anna Elizabeth Van Hook (May 23, 1842–September 2, 1887). ³ Mary Ann died in 1843, and on November 30, 1849, Solomon took as his second wife Ann Elizabeth (Eliza) Sallard (c. 1820–February 17, 1860), daughter of Charles (d. mid-1840s) and Martha Sallard (c. 1792–1852).⁴ To Solomon and Eliza Van Hook were born three children: Charles Kindle (1853–August 25, 1856), William Cornelius (1855–1946), and Mary Ellen, known as Ella (1859–1915).

In 1850 Solomon Van Hook owned 600 acres of improved land and 50 acres of unimproved land in Person County with a total cash value of $4,000. In addition, he owned 9,175 pounds of tobacco, $1,250 worth of livestock, and 52 slaves.⁵ As of about September 1851, Solomon had increased his landholdings to 730 acres valued at $3,920, but he then held only 21 slaves.⁶ Late in 1851, at about the age of forty-one, Van Hook departed Person County and moved his family to Navarro County, Texas, where he resided until his death in November 1868.⁷ On February 4, 1852, at a cost of $2,310.50, he acquired from Berry L. Ham of Navarro County a tract of land in that county comprising just over 1,155 acres.⁸ It is unclear whether or for how long Solomon occupied that parcel, but on October 9, 1856, he purchased from John M. Carroll and his wife, Louisa Carroll, of Smith County, Texas, a tract of land in Navarro County “Containing an area of three hundred & twenty acres of land more or less, the same being so much of the headright claim of Wiley Powell of ⅓ league”; Van Hook paid the Carrolls $960 for the land.⁹

In his new home Solomon farmed, operated a grain mill, and for the most part appeared to be quite prosperous. By 1860 his real estate holdings consisted of 360 acres of improved land and 1,900 acres of unimproved land with a combined cash value of $15,000. His personal property, worth in excess of $64,000, consisted of 23 slaves; livestock (7 horses, 10 mules, 30 milk cows, 50 head of additional cattle, and 100 hogs) valued collectively at $1,880; farm implements worth $525; and various farm products (500 pounds of butter, 1,200 bushels of corn, 400 bushels of wheat, 200 bushels each of oats, sweet potatoes, and barley, and 15 bushels of peas and beans)—but only 2 ¼ bales of cotton.¹⁰ The fact that Van Hook produced so much food on essentially a subsistence basis and so little in the way of cotton suggests that eight years after arriving in his new home, he continued to have difficulty producing the area’s chief cash crop. His letters frequently mentioned problems, mostly weather related, encountered in attempting to produce successful cotton harvests. Perhaps even more significant was the absence of transportation facilities out of Navarro, which certainly discouraged the commercial production of cotton and likely led to Van Hook’s preoccupation with the construction of railroads.

On January 9, 1852, after arriving in Texas and shortly before settling permanently in Navarro County, Solomon commenced a series of letters to his brother David, of Leasburg, Caswell County, North Carolina, that would...